House Votes to Keep Offshore Drilling Ban

    Despite talk of an energy crisis and the need for independence from foreign oil, Congress seems to be in no mood to open more of the country's coastal waters to energy development.

    The House late Thursday rejected an attempt to end the quarter-century ban on oil and natural gas drilling that has been in effect for 85 percent of the country's coastal waters from Alaska to New England despite arguments that new supplies are needed to lower energy costs.

    Lawmakers from Florida and California, who led the fight to continue the drilling moratorium, said they feared energy projects as close as three miles from shore could jeopardize multibillion-dollar tourism industries in their states.


The failure of this attempt to lift the ban on offshore drilling is an atrocity.

First, it only applied to natural gas, not oil, and natural gas evaporates anyway so it doesn't cause oil slicks, etc.

Second, all the lifting of the ban would do is let states have the choice to opt out of the ban. So under the proposal, if Florida still wanted its precious little ban in place, it could keep it, even if the proposal passed -- but Virginia, which does want to let gas drilling occur, would have that option. What's so wrong with giving the states the option?!?

This just infuriates me.